"Let no freedom be allowed to novelty, because it is not fitting that any addition should be made to antiquity. Let not the clear faith and belief of our forefathers be fouled by any muddy admixture."
-- Pope Sixtus III

Friday, March 24, 2017

Thank God for the few REAL conservatives who stood tall for principle, freedom, and the Constitution by not supporting Clump's fake healthcare replacement bill. The suckers who voted for that orange sodomite have doomed us to commie medicine and needless death instead of the freedom that is our birthright. Pray that the perverts who rule us will learn from this or die before we start paying for their madness with our lives.TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

The tone chilled an already tense courtroom as Bradley stared with his left eye, the one that still worked, directly at Hernandez. He tilted his head to the right and shook it in fury at his old friend. These were no empty words, no posing. Given the chance, Bradley would almost certainly kill Hernandez. And vice versa, at least if Hernandez learned that when it comes to Alexander Bradley, it takes more than one close-range shot to the skull to finish him.

Judge Jeffrey Locke broke for lunch right then, leaving Bradley’s words and stare to hang over a jury stuck contemplating the levels of personal betrayal overwhelming this case. As court officers ushered Bradley out, he walked past Hernandez, the two of them locked in a shared look of pure menace.

Hernandez is charged with killing Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in a 2012 drive-by shooting after a brief encounter earlier at a Boston nightclub. Bradley is the state’s star witness, the driver of the vehicle Hernandez was in that night and the lone eyewitness capable of putting the gun in the former New England Patriot’s hand.

Across a lengthy day of direct examination (the defense’s ferocious cross of Bradley is expected to begin Tuesday) the trial focused on the chaotic friendship of Bradley and Hernandez – the former a Connecticut drug trafficker, the latter an NFL star, both of them with a propensity for rage and unnecessary violence that have dominated and doomed their lives thus far.

Hernandez, 27, is serving a life sentence for the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd in North Attleboro, Mass. Bradley, 34, is currently doing a five-year stint in Connecticut for indiscriminately shooting up a Hartford nightclub in 2013 after someone there shot him three times in the leg over a dispute about money.

Together they make a pathetic pairing. Penned up and battle-scarred, each trying to save whatever is left of himself by accusing the other of actually killing de Abreu and Furtado.

Their relationship had begun through commerce, a buyer and a seller, Bradley often supplying marijuana on a payment plan because Hernandez was still just a college football player then, a Florida Gator, and money was tight. It wouldn’t be for long, though, not with the NFL beckoning.

They became friends. They smoked a lot. They played video games a lot. They partied a lot together. They also provided something for each other. Hernandez allowed Bradley into his orbit of superstardom. Bradley gave Hernandez undeniable street toughness that he always coveted. Bradley was true gangster. He was also the rare peer who didn’t need his money.

They also shared an unexpected level of depth. Hernandez, for all his tough-guy posturing, grew up in a two-parent, middle-class home, and had the gift of a chameleon. He went to college for three years. He could act like a thug, but he was smart and well spoken. So, too, was Bradley, who from the witness stand offered a large vocabulary. In his testimony, a car was a “vehicle,” a house was a “residence” and a gun was a “firearm.” Aaron Hernandez was “Mr. Hernandez.” He used legal jargon. Notes of his entered into evidence displayed admirable penmanship.

At one point he described issuing Hernandez a death threat this way: “I expressed my feeling to him about how I wanted to handle the situation,” Bradley said.

That’s one way to put it.

Bonded by evenings of bottles and blunts, it was a rare day they didn’t at least check in by phone, and a rare week they weren’t hanging out two or three times, often in Boston nightclubs.

The most fateful came in July 2012, when Bradley testified that Hernandez grew angry that de Abreu didn’t pay him enough respect when he bumped into the Patriot and caused a drink to splash. Later, Hernandez spotted de Abreu’s party driving away at closing time and ordered Bradley to follow in pursuit.

Bradley did just that, running a red light to pull up alongside the Cape Verdean immigrant’s car. That’s when Bradley said Hernandez, wearing rosary beads as a necklace, fired five shots. He would have done more, but he was out of ammo.

The two fled and headed back to Connecticut, each of them, according to Bradley, shocked at what had occurred.

“He was kind of panicked,” Bradley said. “He said, ‘I hit one in the head and one in the chest"...

You kiddies may have noticed I have been including more non-Euclidean sex stories here in my idiot blog lately. Let me tell you why.I am old and tired, kids. I am cynical, bored, disillusioned, jaded, and ill. But most of all, I am pissed off.I don't have many friends who enjoy the company of other men, but that doesn't mean I never have. {In case you are wondering, no lesbian friends at all. They are just mean...KIDDING! I kid because I care.} I have seen too many of them self-destruct mentally and physically. I can't stand the heartache inherent in caring for someone who can't or won't see that his passions are destroying him. So I avoid getting to know homosexuals not because I hate them, but because it is too painful... and it REALLY pisses me off!BTW, the use of the word "gay" in this context has gone way beyond ironic. It can only be described as cruel now.The author of the article below, Mr. David-Elijah Nahmod, and I have little in common except that which is most important: our shared humanity.Despite the horrors inflicted upon him by others he thinks are just like himand should behis friends and allies, he clings to the notion that there is some sort of "community" to which he and they belong merely because they generally have the same attitude toward their respective genitals. [And specifically, in the case of his ex.].Mr. Nahmod, no such community exists. Nor has it ever existed. You and every other poor soul - heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or undecided - who conflates and equates orgasms with love are doomed to lives of noisy desperation, despair, depression, and futile, meaningless death. Does that sound like Love to anyone?

In December 2010, I came within 48 hours of committing suicide. At the time I was 54 years old. I had never before considered taking my life, but as 2010 drew to a close, I felt like I had nothing to live for.My cat literally saved me. I've had Charlie, my then 12-year-old feline companion, his whole life. I was all he knew. He trusted me. If I was going to leave him behind, I felt that I should at least find another loving home for him. I couldn't just drop him off at a shelter, where he would no doubt be put down.An ad on Craigslist offering Charlie up for adoption produced not a single response. And so I put off my pending suicide for Charlie's sake. A few weeks later, the desire to end my life passed. As I sit here, telling this sad tale, Charlie lies by my side, sleeping and purring peacefully. All is well in his world. Even though I no longer wish to die, my world has never felt right again.Since 2010, I've read numerous accounts, in both the LGBT and mainstream media, which tell me that many others within the LGBT sphere are feeling the kind of hopeless despair that nearly killed me. We're all aware of the escalating levels of suicide among LGBT youth. Bullying, both online and off, appears to be the driving force behind these tragic losses. But it's not just kids.On March 12, 2013, gay porn king Michael Lucas published “An Open Letter to the Gay Porn Industry.” Lucas' piece was seen in Adult Video News, an industry trade publication. In the heartfelt letter, Lucas calls upon the industry to offer emotional support systems for gay adult models. Lucas walked the walk: he published his email address and let it be known that any performers who were suffering from depression could reach out to him.Lucas was inspired to take this stand by the recent suicide of his friend and former colleague Wilfred Knight--Knight's partner had himself committed suicide only two weeks earlier. The previous month, gay porn models Roman Ragazzi and Arpad Miklos had taken their own lives.At about this time, Lucas made a shocking revelation on his Facebook page: 20 members of his gym, not one of whom worked in gay porn, had also committed suicide.In an era when LGBT people are enjoying more visibility and acceptance than at any time in U.S. history, what could possibly be driving this horrifying epidemic?In my own case, the answer is simple, yet profoundly disturbing. I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household in an ultra-conservative, virulently homophobic community. My sexuality became apparent at a very young age. On the advice of a Rabbi, my parents put me in a mental hospital when I was 8 years old. I was kept heavily medicated. I was also fed a heavy dose of Bible quotes during "therapy." This, in essence, is the story of my childhood. I came out of the experience deeply wounded and scarred. I have since been diagnosed with PTSD--Post Traumatic Stress Disorder--for which now I take medication.Decades later, in 2005, my now former partner found "the Lord." He left me to live with Kathryn and Stephen Polich, a conservative, Christian identified couple in Surprise, Arizona. In 2007, for no reason at all, Mr. and Mrs. Polich took out a restraining order against me, then proceeded to harass me while the order was in effect. Their actions included sending me emails with phrases like "you emasculated Jewish bitch" and "you ignorant Zionist fool." They also subjected me to publicly posted jokes about mental illness, comments regarding the "disgusting homosexual acts" I indulge in, and accusations of pedophilia.I contacted Judge Gerald Williams of the North Valley Justice Court in Surprise, to inform him of Mr. and Mrs. Polich's behavior. Judge Williams, who had granted them the Order of Protection, assured me that he would do nothing about this. I then turned to gay activists, and gay advocacy groups, and requested help.The response I got was universal: "Ha ha. You're boyfriend doesn't love you anymore. Get over it." Everywhere I turned in the gay community I was either ignored or laughed at. In 2008, I was subjected to two lurid stories in the Phoenix New Times regarding my situation. In the stories, I was referred to as "delusional." I was subjected to further snarky innuendos about mental illness. Niki D'Andrea, the author of both stories, also made an issue out of my being Jewish, which I had never mentioned to her when she contacted me and requested an interview. I asked D'Andrea why she had done this. She had, after all, seen some of Mrs. Polich's postings about me."My editor and I agreed to ignore your documentation," D'Andrea told me. "But I'm an out lesbian, which makes it OK." A quick Google search informed me that D'Andrea has a long history of such conduct.In December 2010, the harassment from Kathryn and Stephen Polich continued to escalate. The Surprise police finally stepped in to assist me. Thanks to the kind intervention of Surprise police officer Officer Michael King, Mr. and Mrs. Polich ended their reign of terror against me. Through it all, gay activists and writers continued to either ignore or laugh at me. My PTSD symptoms, which had been dormant for a number of years, returned, and I had to go back on a medication regimen.It was the combination of all that hate and abuse, from the gay and anti-gay alike, that left me wanting to kill myself. Neither one nor the other was powerful enough to by themselves drive me to that state. It was the combination of both.To this day, I've been unable to find a single gay activist who will tell me that they're sorry I was so horribly treated. I've told my story to literally hundreds of gay activists, all of whom know about my close brush with suicide. In August 2012, Times of Israel Magazine published “A Gay Jewish Man Learns That Hate Can Come From the Most Unexpected Places,” in which I shared a more detailed version of my story. Yet not one of the activists who claim to be fighting for our equality, or purport to be saving us from suicide, will offer me a kind word.I am not alone in this experience. On April 4, SFGN courageously published “Bullying Is Not a Gay Right,” my expose on gay activist Kevin Patrick O'Neil, who has a history of bullying and threatening other LGBT people.I've shared the O'Neil story with the LGBT activist community. This included showing them actual threatening emails that O'Neil sent to Rinna Hoffman, a young lesbian suicide attempt survivor. As with my own story, I showed Hoffman's emails to hundreds upon hundreds of people. Again I was ignored.Those who saw Rinna's emails include Scott Rose, a gay blogger who's been published by Huffington Post and The New Civil Rights Movement. In a series of Facebook messages dated February 5, 2012, Rose expressed his support for the manner in which Hoffman was treated by O'Neil.Hoffman's emails were also seen by Laura McGinnis of The Trevor Project, an LGBT youth suicide prevention organization. McGinnis told me she would offer a statement "if I can find the time", she said. She never found the time.Gay blog sites such as Addicting Info and Taboo Jive publicly declared O'Neil to be a hero; they also saw the emails O'Neil sent to Hoffman.What does it say about us as a community when a victim of anti-gay bias can be ridiculed, and a young suicide survivor can be threatened? What does it say about our movement when absolutely no one will come forward to right these terrible wrongs?There's a great deal of validity to the argument that we're a psychologically damaged people. Centuries of hate have turned us into haters.At some point we have to own up to what all that hate has turned us into. In “Bullying Is Not a Gay Right” I stated that our kids were killing themselves in record numbers. We've been failing them, I pointed out.But now we see that it's not just kids who are dying. How many funerals must there be before we hold our leaders, and ourselves, accountable?Please pray for Mr. Nahmod, kiddies, and all others like him who define themselves by what they do with their sexual organs. Remember, Hugh Hefner and Barney Frank are basically the same.TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

A group of California lawmakers have proposed legislation that would make it no longer a felony for an HIV-positive individual to knowingly expose others to the disease by not disclosing their HIV status and engaging in unprotected sex.The new legislation would make such acts a misdemeanor. The measure was written by state Senator Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco) with Assemblywoman Susan Eggman (D-Stockton) and Assemblymen Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) and David Chiu (D-San Francisco).The Los Angeles Times reports:

“HIV-related stigma is one of our main obstacles to reducing and ultimately eliminating infections,” Wiener said. “When you criminalize HIV or stigmatize people who have HIV it encourages people not to get tested, to stay in the shadows, not to be open about their status, not to seek treatment.”...Legislators who support the measure say medicine has made the current law unfair.“These laws are absolutely discriminatory. No other serious infectious disease is treated this way. HIV was signaled out,” said Wiener, who wrote the legislation with Assemblywoman Susan Eggman (D-Stockton) and Assemblymen Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) and David Chiu (D-San Francisco).

They noted that someone can be charged with a felony even if the medicine they are taking makes them virally suppressed, which means it is unlikely they would pass the infection to another person.

“Current state law related to those living with HIV is unfair because it is based on the fear and ignorance of a bygone era,” Gloria said. “With this legislation, California takes an important step to update our laws to reflect the medical advances which no longer make a positive diagnosis equal to a death sentence."

The proposed legislation also has its opponents.

Opponents of the bill, including state Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Murrieta), say knowingly exposing others to a life-altering disease should remain a felony.

“HIV/AIDS remains a deadly disease,” Stone, a pharmacist, said in a statement. “Existing law provides accountability of those engaging in unprotected, risky behavior that endangers the life of another.”

Sen. Joel Anderson (R-San Diego) said the availability of medicines that can prolong life does not change the major impact an HIV-positive diagnosis has on a person’s life.

“While we have come a long way with AIDS, you still have to take drugs for the rest of your life. You still have to bear the burden of the costs of the health care,” Anderson said. “I get that this is the only disease that is treated that way, but I think any disease that you inflict on somebody against their will that permanently changes them should be a felony.”

Anderson said he would be willing to address the discrimination issue by adding other diseases to the list whose intentional spreading is a felony.

Hep C, anyone? If you share a dirty needle, you go to jail. At least you would be less likely to infect another.

He challenged the argument that the law change is needed because otherwise some people will not get tested and will continue spreading the disease.

“Because they are so disrespectful of the people they are willing to engage in a sexual act with and risk their life, that is the reason why they need to go to prison,” Anderson said. “They can’t be trusted in society as a responsible person.”

How about less fascism than we have now, with a promise by politicians [hee-hee] to get rid of all the rest of our current fascism after they consolidate their great "win" and make sure Clump The Limp will be elected in another landslide?If you think you have heard this one before, kiddies, you're right. Its the "lesser of two evils"/"politics is the art of compromise" dodge that does nothing but ensure that fascism grows more slowly. Brilliant!Any fascism, left or right, is too much. Any totalitarianism, left or right, is too much. Any authoritarianism, left or right, is too much. These things are not just unacceptable, the are un-American, inhuman, and immoral.I know there are too few people with principles for this to be fixed without great hardship and bloodshed. It did not have to end this way, but this is the way we have chosen. Whether by sin of commission or sin of omission, we have all sealed the fate of what is left of Western Civilization. Something will emerge from the carnage, and there is absolutely no way it will be as good as that which we have squandered.Suckers.TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Keith Pepple saw the flashing lights of a police car behind him and pulled over.

A motorcycle zoomed by, followed by a Michigan State Police trooper.

Moments later down the road, Pepple would risk his life — and quite possibly save another life — to help the trooper as he was being attacked by the motorcycle driver and that man's brother.

"I guess everything happened so fast, you don’t really have time to think about it," said Pepple, 50, of Plainwell. "I just saw that he needed help. And I decided to help."

Pepple was participating in one of his favorite hobbies, geocaching, an outdoor treasure-hunting game that uses GPS coordinates, when he stumbled on the scene. It was Feb. 20 on U.S.-31 in Berrien County.

Further down the road from where the motorcycle and police car passed Pepple, the motorcycle crashed. The driver got up and began charging toward the trooper, police said, ignoring commands to stop. He then struggled with the trooper as he tried to arrest him.

Pepple was driving by when he saw the scene and decided to stop and help. Just then, a man jumped out of another vehicle that had also stopped. That man ran over and put the trooper in a headlock and yelled for the motorcycle driver to leave, according to police.

The motorcycle driver ran a short distance away, then returned. He reached for the trooper's holster, but it was empty because the gun had fallen out in the scuffle, police said. He started punching the trooper in the face.

The two men were motorcycle driver Michael Barber, 21, of Gobles, and Travis Wise, 19, of Middlebury, Ind.

Trooper Garry Guild thought he was going to die.

"I am gasping and struggling for air, to the point where I can't breathe," Guild told the Free Press.

Pepple sprang into action.

"I got up there, and I grabbed a hold of Barber and threw him off" the trooper, Pepple said. "Everybody went to the ground. I had Barber in a headlock. I looked back and Wise was still choking the officer. I grabbed Wise and put him in a headlock."

A second passerby, Jerry Burnham, 44, of Berrien Springs, also stopped to help.

Both suspects were arrested. They are facing multiple felony charges, including assault with intent to murder.

Investigators learned that the motorcycle had been stolen from a business in Van Buren County. Guild said he initially didn't know that; he tried to stop it because he clocked it as traveling at 92 m.p.h.

The incident left Guild, 51, with an acute neck injury and swollen jaw. He also had a minor hand injury from where he accidentally Tased himself during the struggle.

He was back at work the next day.

"I wanted to make sure I got the report in while most of the information in my head was fresh and get it in the prosecutors' hand so they could be arraigned as soon as possible," the 21-year State Police veteran said.

Pepple, a married father of two, is a maintenance worker at the Coca-Cola plant in Paw Paw. Guild and Michigan State Police Lt. Melinda Logan, one of Guild's supervisors at the State Police post in Niles, visited the plant recently to publicly recognize and thank him for what he did.

"I can't thank him enough," Guild said.

Logan said: "These two guys came into this not knowing if they were going to be hurt and risked their own lives to help someone else. It’s just amazing to me. We’re really proud of them, and forever indebted to them."

A propo of nothing, Mr. Pepple is white and Trooper Guild is black.TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Cal used to make only conservative noises, but now he seems to have found that new-fangled religion known as Orange Messianism. The REPANSYCAN AHA [I dropped the "c" because none of these imbeciles really cares.] is an establishment fascist bill - it does not free the American people from one bit of the jug-eared jackass' commie takeover of one sixth of our economy. It is nothing but a sorry attempt to get the orange pervert a "win". Sound familiar? Meaningless legislative "wins" for the sake of that psychopath's re-election bid do nothing but dig us deeper into the fascist morass of individualized loss and socialized "gain".SUCKERS!Contact the members of the U.S. House's Freedom Caucus:House Freedom Caucus | Facebook

Readers of a certain age may recall ads for Ivory Soap, which claimed to be 99 and 44/100ths percent pure. If the soap could have reached 100 percent purity, the company would likely have made the claim.

Purity, apparently, is what some conservative Republicans are demanding in a health insurance bill, which likely will be voted on this week, unless it is held back because Speaker Paul Ryan doesn’t think it has enough votes to pass. Supporters of the evolving House bill emphasize that this is a three-step process designed to get what virtually all conservatives want, a more cost-effective health plan, only they can’t muster enough votes, especially in the Senate. Some conservatives are taking an all-or-nothing approach, which is likely to guarantee they will get nothing.

Cynics (imagine that in Washington), apparently, want Obamacare to collapse so that they can blame Democrats. That might be a political winner for Republicans, but it risks leaving millions of people, especially the poor, in a gap between Medicaid and other health benefits and whatever comes next.

During an interview in his office, Vice President Mike Pence told me, “The president is determined to keep his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.” Due to what he called “the arcane rules of the Senate on budgeting bills, it likely will take two pieces of legislation to do that, and a significant amount of administrative action by (HHS) Secretary Tom Price. We really believe a combination of those efforts by this spring will repeal Obamacare once and for all and replace it with health care reform that gives people the freedom to choose whether to have health insurance that lowers (its) cost for every American and creates a national marketplace where people have the ability to buy health insurance the way they buy car and life insurance, and gives the states the ability to improve Medicaid with state-based innovation and reform.”

Pence calls Medicaid “deeply flawed” and notes “many doctors and hospitals don’t take Medicaid patients anymore.” What about the politics of this, I ask, noting the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that millions will lose their health insurance under this reform?

“CBO was wrong about the numbers of Obamacare,” he says, “and we think they’re wrong about this plan. CBO projected last year there would be another 8 million people covered, so we take issue with their estimate.”

Pence mentions what he calls “the fundamental difference” between Obamacare and the president’s proposal. Under Obamacare, he says, the government ordered everyone to have health insurance and the exchanges forced people to pay for services they would never use. The president’s goal, he says, is to expand choice and allow people to choose policies — or not — tailored to their needs. The poor would get tax credits to help them purchase policies, should they choose to.

“Amendments” to the House bill, Pence says, “Will be forthcoming” in an effort to address some of the concerns of conservatives who oppose the current measure.

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial gets the politics right. “If conservatives fumble this repeal and replace moment,” WSJ writes, “they won’t get another chance. And they’ll have squandered their best opening in a generation to control the size and scope of the federal Leviathan.”

If a Republican congressional majority and a Republican president can’t use their power of persuasion to convince enough members of their party to repeal and replace Obamacare, it will leave many people wondering why they are needed.

Failure to at least take the first step in replacing a deeply flawed, government-mandated insurance program will leave a stain on the Republican Party that even the strongest and purest “detergent” will not be able to remove.

Monday, March 20, 2017

Amid an opioid epidemic, the rise of deadly synthetic drugs and the widening legalization of marijuana, a curious bright spot has emerged in the youth drug culture: American teenagers are growing less likely to try or regularly use drugs, including alcohol.

With minor fits and starts, the trend has been building for a decade, with no clear understanding as to why. Some experts theorize that falling cigarette-smoking rates are cutting into a key gateway to drugs, or that antidrug education campaigns, long a largely failed enterprise, have finally taken hold.

But researchers are starting to ponder an intriguing question: Are teenagers using drugs less in part because they are constantly stimulated and entertained by their computers and phones?

The possibility is worth exploring, they say, because use of smartphones and tablets has exploded over the same period that drug use has declined. This correlation does not mean that one phenomenon is causing the other, but scientists say interactive media appears to play to similar impulses as drug experimentation, including sensation-seeking and the desire for independence.

Whatever happened to sex & rock 'n' roll? What about muscle cars and sock hops down at the malt shop?

Just wait until VR takes over.

Or it might be that gadgets simply absorb a lot of time that could be used for other pursuits, including partying.

Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, says she plans to begin research on the topic in the next few months, and will convene a group of scholars in April to discuss it. The possibility that smartphones were contributing to a decline in drug use by teenagers, Dr. Volkow said, was the first question she asked when she saw the agency’s most recent survey results. The survey, “Monitoring the Future,” an annual government-funded report measuring drug use by teenagers, found that past-year use of illicit drugs other than marijuana was at the lowest level in the 40-year history of the project for eighth, 10th and 12th graders.

Use of marijuana is down over the past decade for eighth and 10th graders even as social acceptability is up, the study found. Though marijuana use has risen among 12th graders, the use of cocaine, hallucinogens, ecstasy and crack are all down, too, while LSD use has remained steady.

Even as heroin use has become an epidemic among adults in some communities, it has fallen among high schoolers over the past decade, the study found.

Those findings are consistent with other studies showing steady declines over the past decade in drug use by teenagers after years of ebbs and flows. Dr. Volkow said this period was also notable because declining use patterns were cutting across groups — “boys and girls, public and private school, not driven by one particular demographic,” she said.

“Something is going on,” Dr. Volkow added.

Brilliant! Hey doc, look at this Amazon thing...

With experts in the field exploring reasons for what they describe as a clear trend, the novel notion that ever-growing phone use may be more than coincidental is gaining some traction.

Dr. Volkow described interactive media as “an alternative reinforcer” to drugs, adding that “teens can get literally high when playing these games.”

Dr. Silvia Martins, a substance abuse expert at Columbia University who has already been exploring how to study the relationship of internet and drug use among teenagers, called the theory “highly plausible.”

“Playing video games, using social media, that fulfills the necessity of sensation seeking, their need to seek novel activity,” Dr. Martins said, but added of the theory: “It still needs to be proved.”

Indeed, there are competing theories and some confounding data. While drug use has fallen among youths ages 12 to 17, it hasn’t declined among college students, said Dr. Sion Kim Harris, co-director of the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Harris said she had not considered technology’s role and would not rule it out given the appeal of the devices, but said she was “hopeful” drug use by teenagers had decreased because public-education and prevention campaigns were working. Dr. Joseph Lee, a psychiatrist in Minneapolis who treats teenage addicts at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, said he suspected that drug use and experimentation had changed because the opioid epidemic had exposed many more people and communities to the deadly risks of drugs, creating a broader deterrent.

Explanations aside, researchers unanimously expressed hope that the trends would persist. They noted it was crucial to continue efforts to understand the reasons for the decline, as well as to discourage drug use.

Though smartphones seem ubiquitous in daily life, they are actually so new that researchers are just beginning to understand what the devices may do to the brain. Researchers say phones and social media not only serve a primitive need for connection but can also create powerful feedback loops.

THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE! THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE!

“People are carrying around a portable dopamine pump, and kids have basically been carrying it around for the last 10 years,” said David Greenfield, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and founder of The Center for Internet and Technology Addiction.

Alexandra Elliott, 17, a senior at George Washington High School in San Francisco, said using her phone for social media “really feels good” in a way consistent with a “chemical release.” A heavy phone user who smokes marijuana occasionally, Alexandra said she didn’t think the two were mutually exclusive.

However, she said, the phone provides a valuable tool for people at parties who don’t want to do drugs because “you can sit around and look like you’re doing something, even if you’re not doing something, like just surfing the web.”

“I’ve done that before,” she explained, “with a group sitting around a circle passing a bong or a joint. And I’ll sit away from the circle texting someone.”

Melanie Clarke, an 18-year-old taking a gap year and working in a Starbucks in Cape Cod, Mass., said she had virtually no interest in drugs, despite having been around her. “Personally, I think it is a substitution,” Ms. Clarke said of her phone, which she said she was rarely without. Ms. Clarke also said she thought the habits depended on the person. “When I’m home alone, my first instinct is to go for the phone. Some kids will break out the bowls,” referring to a marijuana-smoking device.

“There is very little hard, definitive evidence on the subject,” said James Anthony, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Michigan State University and an expert on drug-use behavior. Still, he said, he has begun wondering about the role of technology on youth drug use: “You’d have to be an idiot not to think about it.”

To see declines in drug use, Mr. Anthony said, “it would not take much in the way of displacement of adolescent time and experience in the direction of nondrug ‘reinforcers’ that have become increasingly available.”

The statistics about drug and technology use depict a decade of changing habits.

In 2015, 4.2 percent of teenagers ages 12 to 17 reported smoking a cigarette in the last month, down from 10.8 percent in 2005, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Its survey also found that past-month alcohol use among 12- to 17-year-olds had fallen to 9.6 percent from 16.5 percent, while rising slightly for young adults ages 18 to 25.

The survey found smaller but still statistically significant decreases in cocaine use by youths ages 12 to 17. Marijuana use was flat over the same decade: In 2015, 7 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds said they had smoked the drug, roughly the same number in 2005. But that was down from 8.2 percent in 2002 and it contrasted with the trend for the population as a whole — such use was up to 8.3 percent in 2015, compared with 6 percent a decade ago.

At the same time, gadgets are consuming a growing portion of young people’s time. A 2015 survey published by Common Sense Media, a children’s advocacy and media ratings group in San Francisco, found that American teenagers ages 13 to 18 averaged six and a half hours of screen media time per day on social media and other activities like video games.

A 2015 report from the Pew Research Center found that 24 percent of teenagers ages 13 to 17 reported being online “almost constantly,” and that 73 percent had a smartphone or access to one. In 2004, a similar Pew study found that 45 percent of teenagers had a cellphone. (The first iPhone, which fueled smartphone adoption, was introduced in 2007.)

Smartphones and computers are a growing source of concern, said Eric Elliott, Alexandra’s father, who is a psychologist at her school. Mr. Elliott, who has counseled young people for 19 years, said he had seen a decrease in drug and alcohol use among students in recent years. He said he was “more likely to have a challenge with a student who has a video game addiction than I am a student who is addicted to drugs; I can’t say that for the beginning of my career.”

In the case of his own daughter, he worried more about the device than the drugs.

“I see her at this point and time as not being a person who is controlled in any way by smoking pot,” he said. But “her phone is something she sleeps with.”

Don't forget she also sleeps with her chemistry teacher and Raul, her favorite bad boy from the hood.

SCRANTON, Pa.
— Hillary Clinton said Friday she's "ready to come out of the
woods" and help Americans find common ground.Clinton's
gradual return to the public spotlight following her presidential
election loss continued with a St. Patrick's Day speech in her late
father's Pennsylvania hometown of Scranton.

"I'm like a lot of my friends right now, I have a hard time watching the news," Clinton told an Irish women's group.Hee-hee. Like Distaff Clump has friends!But she urged a divided country to work together to solve problems, recalling how, as first lady, she met with female leaders working to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

"I do not believe that we can let political divides harden into personal divides. And we can't just ignore, or turn a cold shoulder to someone because they disagree with us politically," she said.Friday night's speech was one of several she is to deliver in the coming months, including a May 26 commencement address at her alma mater, Wellesley College in Massachusetts. The Democrat also is working on a book of personal essays that will include some reflections on her loss to Donald Trump.Clinton, who was spotted taking a walk in the woods around her hometown of Chappaqua, New York, two days after losing the election to Donald Trump, quipped she had wanted to stay in the woods, "but you can only do so much of that."She told the Society of Irish Women that it'll be up to citizens, not a deeply polarized Washington, to bridge the political divide."I am ready to come out of the woods and to help shine a light on what is already happening around kitchen tables, at dinners like this, to help draw strength that will enable everybody to keep going," said Clinton.

Clinton was received warmly in Scranton, where her grandfather worked in a lace mill. Her father left Scranton for Chicago in search of work during the Great Depression, but returned often. Hillary Clinton spent summers at the family's cottage on nearby Lake Winola.She fondly recalled watching movies stretched across a bedsheet in a neighbor's yard, and told of how the cottage had a toilet but no shower or tub."Don't tell anybody this, but we'd go down to the lake," she said.No wonder she always smelled like raw sewage...

I came to Carthage, where I found myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lusts. I had not yet fallen in love, but I was in love with the idea of it, and this feeling that something was missing made me despise myself for not being more anxious to satisfy the need. I began to look around for some object for my love, since I badly wanted to love something.

A pregnant woman in northeastern Alabama has been charged with rape after authorities said she wrote on a Medicaid application that a 14-year-old boy was the father of her unborn baby.

Mekenzie Guffey. (Jackson County Jail)

Police and the state department of human resources launched an investigation after 19-year-old Mekenzie Leigh Guffey, of Hollywood, Ala., identified the boy on paperwork for Social Security benefits earlier this month, Hollywood Police Chief Jason Hepler told AL.com.Workers notified the state human resources agency, which then contacted police.Guffey was arrested last week and charged with second-degree rape and second-degree sex abuse, along with enticing a child for immoral purposes, traveling to meet a child for an unlawful sex act, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography, according to reports.She posted bond and was released from custody earlier this week. It was not immediately clear whether she has an attorney.

Police said Guffey, from Hollywood, a small town east of Huntsville, met the boy through a mutual friend and started a relationship with him late last year, according to AL.com. Police said she would pick up the boy at his home and drive him to a remote area in town for sex.Hepler, the police chief, told ABC affiliate WAAY that Guffey admitted to having sex with the boy about 20 times since December.

There you go. That last one has some obvious death for you beginners.Part 1: SEX IS DEATH. (Stories for boys) is here.Part 2: SEX IS DEATH. (Distaff death) is here.Part 3: SEX IS DEATH. (Joyously dispensing death) is here.Part 4: SEX IS DEATH. (Sex is depression) is here.Part 5: SEX IS DEATH. (When self-pleasuring becomes self-destruction) is here.Part 6: SEX IS DEATH. (Sex is theft) is here.Part 7: SEX IS DEATH. (A review of Bareback Mountain) is here.Part 8: SEX IS DEATH. (What is the ultimate penalty?) is here.Part 9: SEX IS DEATH. (Haven from reality) is here.Part 10: SEX IS DEATH. (Sin-redemption-reasons-reason) is here.Part 11: SEX IS DEATH. (Mommy loves you) is here.Part 12: SEX IS DEATH. (George Gilder offers a clue) is here.Part 13: SEX IS DEATH. (Post-killem depression) is here.Part 14: SEX IS DEATH. (Whither womanhood) is here.Part 15: SEX IS DEATH. (Saving psychology 1) is here.Part 16: SEX IS DEATH. (Saving psychology 2) is here.Part 17: SEX IS DEATH. (Fear of the boomers) is here.Part 18: SEX IS DEATH. (The battle continues apace) is here.Part 19: SEX IS DEATH. (Hot for teacher) is here.Part 20: SEX IS DEATH. (Kids do the darndest things) is here.Part 21: SEX IS DEATH. (Defects) is here.Part 22: SEX IS DEATH. (Privates' privacy) is here.Part 23: SEX IS DEATH. (National Condom Week) is here.Part 24: SEX IS DEATH. (Wegenics) is here.Part 25: SEX IS DEATH. (White wedding) is here.Part 26: SEX IS DEATH. (Literally) is here.Part 27: SEX IS DEATH. (Can't get me no satisfaction) is here.Part 28: SEX IS DEATH. (Wrestle with mania) is here.Part 29: SEX IS DEATH. (Press one for death/Presione uno para la muerte) is here.Part 30: SEX IS DEATH. (Raunch culture) is here.Part 31: SEX IS DEATH. (Gimme some of that sweet zombie lovin') is here.Part 32: SEX IS DEATH. (The devil made me eat my baby) is here.Part 33: SEX IS DEATH. (Mind control = womb control) is here.Part 34: SEX IS DEATH. (The expense of playing with yourself) is here.Part 35: SEX IS DEATH. (You can't always get what you want) is here.Part 36: SEX IS DEATH. (Whom does a master serve?) is here.Part 37: SEX IS DEATH. (Shootin' 5 for 8) is here.Part 38: SEX IS DEATH. (Being a never-wed mom of four and an illegal alien is no picnic either) is here.

About Me

First of all, the word is SEX, not GENDER. If you are ever tempted to use the word GENDER, don't. The word is SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! For example: "My sex is male." is correct.
"My gender is male." means nothing. Look it up.
What kind of sick neo-Puritan nonsense is this? Idiot left-fascists, get your blood-soaked paws off the English language. Hence I am choosing "male" under protest.